Sunday, March 4, 2012

Doris Duke's Adopted (Adult) Daughter

The billionaire tobacco heiress Doris Duke has something in common with John Goodman, who made headlines recently for adopting his 42-year-old girlfriend. Both were very wealthy, and both adopted adults, but for very different reasons. Goodman, did it to try to avoid being hit with a huge civil suit payment for vehicular homicide.

Doris Duke, on the other hand was reportedly trying to replace her dead baby.

When Duke was 27 years old, she delivered a premature baby daughter who died just 24 hours after being born. The baby’s death profoundly affected Duke, and she even hired psychics to try to help her communicate with her lost child. It never worked.

But in 1985, at the age of 73, Duke's belly dancing instructor introduced her another of her students, to 32-year-old Hare Krishna devotee Chandi Heffner

Duke decided that Heffner was the reincarnation of her lost baby daughter. The two women started out as friends, but Duke began lavishing increasingly more extravagant gifts on Heffner, including a 290-acre horse ranch in Hawaii.

In 1989, Duke formalized the odd relationship by legally adopting the 35-year-old Heffner.

However, by 1991, the relationship had soured. According to a documentary about Doris Duke's death and will challeneges: the butler did it! Six years before her death Doris hired Bernard Lafferty, as her butler. He allegedly helped instill paranoia into Ms. Duke, having her cut herself from all contact with everyone but him. Months before her death, he had her change her will making him sole executor.

Duke tried to negate the adoption of Heffner. Some accounts say she succeeded. in any event, she disinherited her. Duke’s will specifically instructed that her former adopted daughter should not receive any inheritance:

“I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her (when she was 35 years old) to attempt to benefit financially under the terms of trusts created by my father. After giving the matter prolonged and serious consideration, I am convinced that I should not have adopted Chandi Heffner.

“I have come to the realization that her primary motive was financial gain. I believe that, like me, my father would not have wanted her to have benefitted under the trusts which he created, and similarly, I do not wish her to benefit from my estate.”

After suing Duke’s estate three times following Duke’s 1993 death, however, Heffner received a $65 million settlement.

The butler, Lafferty, was proven unfit as executor and removed. he died at 51 years of age after receiving a substantial inheritance from the Duke estate. But the bulk of Doris' money went to charities.

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World Hunger

"Open adoption and open records are important byways. But they are not the most compelling route. Family preservation is."Dr. Randolph Severson, The Soul of Family Preservation

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .”The Special Rapporteur, United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

As defined by International law/UNCRC and the Hague Convention, International law says that Family Preservation should come first, domestic adoption second, and international adoption as a last resort. What we have today is the complete opposite where international adoption is used as the go to solution in separating children from their biological families.

"Over the past 30 years, the number of families from wealthy countries wanting to adopt children from other countries has grown substantially. At the same time, lack of regulation and oversight, particularly in the countries of origin, coupled with the potential for financial gain, has spurred the growth of an industry around adoption, where profit, rather than the best interests of children, takes centre stage. Abuses include the sale and abduction of children, coercion of parents, and bribery."

UNICEF's position on Inter-country adoption.

"...overseas adoption is a kind of child abuse by the state. ....Overseas adoption is the forced expulsion of children from the society where they are supposed to live. In this sense, overseas adoption is a social violence against children. As humans, we exist as part of a gigantic ecosystem. The existence of the biological parents of adoptees can never be annihilated nor denied."Overseas adoption is a forced separation of children from their natural ecosystems, as well as a way of forcing them into compulsory unity with settings different from and unnatural to their genetic and original social systems. Through this forced separation and compulsory unity, not only the adoptees, but also their biological parents, adoptive parents and their family members suffer trauma."Pastor Kim Do-hyun, director of KoRoot

According to the United Nations, children separated from their parents during war or natural disasters should not be adopted. “Even if both their parents are dead,” reads UNICEF’s statement on intercountry adoption, “the chances of finding living relatives, a community and home to return to after the conflict subsides exist. Thus, such children should not be considered for intercountry adoption.” Sept. 9, 2013 (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

"To focus on these children without focusing on their families or communities thus becomes an ignoble hypocrisy; as if to say, 'give us your huddled masses–but only if they are cute children and can be indoctrinated from an early age'.” Daniel Ibn Zayd

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Mirah Riben

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Family Preservation

See Also"What is Family Preservation""Children have rights. These rights are laid down essentially in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and in the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children.

"Children and their biological parents have a right to respect for their family life."Adoption: at what cost? 2007 Terre des hommes – child relief, Lausanne, Switzerland

"Every child has the right to know and be cared for by his or her own parents, whenever possible. UNICEF believes that families needing support to care for their children should receive it."UNICEF

The Uniform Adoption Act calls for the protection of "minor children against unnecessary separation from their birth parents."

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

"If ... the best interests of the child is to be the determining factor in child custody cases ... persons seeking babies to adopt might profitably frequent grocery stores and snatch babies from carts when the parent is looking the other way. Then, if custody proceedings can be delayed long enough, they can assert that they have a nicer home, a superior education, a better job or whatever, and that the best interests of the child are with the baby snatchers. Children of parents living in public housing or other conditions deemed less affluent and children of single parents might be considered particularly fair game." -- Justice James Heiple, Illinois Supreme Court in the "Baby Richard" case.

Article 7, U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child"The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents."

Article 8"Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity."

Article 9"States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child's best interests."-------------------------------------------------------------------------On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html).They include:• Article 12. - No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, FAMILY, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.• Article 16(3) - The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.• Article 25(1) - Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.